ISTANBUL: Turkey is planning to build a bridge across the famed Dardanelles strait to help ease traffic congestion in Istanbul, a minister said, revealing the latest in a string of mega projects under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The straits, which separate Europe and Asia, were last bridged by Xerxes the Great, the Persian “king of kings” in 480 BC on his way to defeat the Greeks at Thermopylae.
“We are planning to construct a new bridge across the Dardanelles strait,” Transport Minister Lutfi Elvan said in an interview with Turkish television.
The Dardanelles lead into the Sea of Marmara which then goes into the Bosphorus in Istanbul itself. The waterway is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and is 1.2 km wide at its narrowest point.
So far the Dardanelles strait can only be crossed by ferry.
“We will turn the entire Marmara region into a ring road, so this ring system will ease the Istanbul traffic to a great extent,” Elvan added.
The Dardanelles, which played a key role in the great sea battles of ancient history, were also the site of one of the most famous battles of World War I when Ottoman troops resisted an invading Allied force.
It was also where the founder of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal, the man who would later become known as Ataturk, made his name as a heroic military leader.
Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government is under fire for its ambitious construction projects for the mega city of 16 million, which critics have condemned as wildly excessive and damaging to the environment.
The projects include a massive new Istanbul airport, a third road bridge across the Bosphorus, and a canal parallel to the waterway to ease the permanent bottleneck of tankers and freighters waiting to pass through it.
Erdogan has said the projects are needed to create a fast-developing and prosperous “new Turkey” that will be one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023.
The building industry has boomed in recent years but while Erdogan was prime minister, his government was shaken by a now-stalled corruption probe into allegations of high-level bribery linked to some construction projects.
Elvan vowed that the government would move ahead with mega projects, saying the government was planning a 17 billion Turkish lira ($7.6 billion/6 billion euros) investment in Istanbul.
Among the new projects is a direct metro line from Kadikoy to the Sabiha Gokcen airport on the Asian side of Istanbul, he added.
Last year amid great fanfare the government opened the first ever undersea metro link beneath the Bosphorus connecting the European and Asian sides of Istanbul.
This year it opened the first high-speed train link between Istanbul and Ankara.
Turkey to bridge the Dardanelles in new mega project
Turkey to bridge the Dardanelles in new mega project
19k ‘Made in Saudi Arabia’ products now reaching 180 markets: industry minister
RIYADH: Products carrying the “Made in Saudi” logo have reached 19,000 and are shipped to 180 countries, according to the minister of industry and mineral resources.
In his opening speech at the third edition of the “Made in Saudi” exhibition, Bandar Alkhorayef indicated that the program now includes 3,700 registered national companies.
He noted that the first half of 2025 recorded the highest semi-annual figure for non-oil exports, valued at SR307 billion ($81.8 billion), after total exports in 2024 reached approximately SR515 billion.
The “Made in Saudi” program was launched in 2021 with the aim of strengthening the presence of local products in domestic and international markets and contributing to the growth of the national economy in line with Vision 2030 targets.
The minister highlighted the efforts of the Saudi Exports Development Authority in facilitating the access of national products to global markets.
This has been achieved through the signing of 108 export agreements, the registration of 433 importers on the Saudi Exports platform, and the licensing of nine export houses whose outbound trade has reached 21 countries with a value of SR390 million.
The “Made in Saudi” program is an initiative of the National Industrial Development and Logistics Program. It is managed by the Saudi Export Development Authority, also known as Saudi Exports, a governmental body tasked with increasing the Kingdom’s non-oil exports.
Saudi Exports developed and is managing the program with the strategic intent of supporting the nation in achieving the objectives of its transformative Vision 2030.
The Authority, through the “Made in Saudi” program, has recently participated as a strategic partner in The Big 5 2025, a leading global exhibition for the construction industry held in Dubai in November.
Saudi Exports led a delegation of more than 50 construction companies from the Kingdom to the event, which drew over 2,000 exhibitors from more than 165 countries.
The program also participated as a strategic public sector partner in the National Development Fund’s Momentum 2025 development finance conference in Riyadh in December, reflecting its integral role in Saudi Arabia’s national economic transformation under Vision 2030.
The conference featured over 100 speakers focused on fostering partnerships to expand financing channels, reflecting the NDF’s central role as an enabler and a strategic driver of the national development finance system.
